Thursday, August 16, 2012

Five Australian universities in world's top 100

The Shanghai Jiaotong University ranking is a respected judgment but all these rankings are arbitrary in various ways. Still, it's notable that Australian universities do pretty well in all of them. The Shanghai Jiaotong ranking compares 1200 higher education institutions worldwide

The University of Melbourne has been named as Australia's top university in a prestigious global ranking of tertiary institutions.

The latest Academic Ranking of World Universities puts the University of Melbourne as the top placed Australian institution at number 57. That is up from 60th spot in 2011.

The Australian National University was ranked number 64, making it Australia's second top-ranked university. It was ranked 70th in 2011.

For the first time Australia has five universities in the top 100, including the University of Queensland in 90th spot, the University of Sydney at 93rd, and the University of Western Australia at 96th. Nineteen of Australia's 39 universities made the top 500.

Harvard University in the United States was ranked number one.

American universities made up eight of the top 10, with Stanford University second, Massachusetts Institute of Technology third, and the University of California, Berkeley, in fourth spot.

The United Kingdom's Cambridge University came in at number five and the University of Oxford was ranked 10th.

TASMANIANS must change attitudes about education, demographer Bernard Salt said yesterday. Unskilled jobs were evaporating from Australia and skills training was imperative. "It needs to be cool to stay on and uncool to leave school at 15," he said.

"Every Tasmanian must send the right message to kids, that the expectation is to get some form of training.

"Ten years of focus on this could change the shape of the state." Without a cultural shift, the Tasmania of the future could be a dangerous place, he said, with social discontent increasing as large numbers of people fell into welfare and became disconnected from the rest of society.

"The best thing you can do is make sure kids have some education," he said.

Mr Salt was visiting Hobart yesterday to outline the changing patterns of work and life in Australia to a national workshop of motoring clubs, organised by the Australian Automobile Association and the RACT. "Australia is not a great, bland amorphous place," he told the workshop. "It is a patchwork."

He pointed to fundamental shifts in Australian life, which threw up many challenges. One was the geographic shift of people from country to coast and city.

Within urban areas, two kinds of cities were emerging, with a growing clash of cultures between the inner-city elite and the outer suburban culture of "middle Australia".

The ethnic make-up of large parts of Australia was changing too, with the arrival of aspirational Indian and East Asian students and migrants.

One of the biggest changes was the mass retirement of the baby boomers. Here he saw opportunities for Tasmania.

"The lifestyle and value for money here is appealing to many baby boomers in Melbourne and Sydney," he said.

"Hobart is grooving up. It is becoming quite a metropolitan, cosmopolitan and fashionable city."

Hundreds, perhaps thousands of Perth people bathe in milk regularly, or so they say. Perth Organics is just one of the companies that sell raw milk; they sell hundreds of litres of it each week. Raw milk is milk in its unpasteurised natural form - and it is illegal to sell for consumption.

Perth Organics, run by husband and wife team David and Lisa Bolt and based in Lesmurdie sell the milk for cosmetic purposes.

A disclaimer on their website points out exactly what the milk should be used for. "Note that unpasteurised milk is sold only for purposes such as bathing milk or cosmetic milk as recommended by the Australian Health Dept. Those that mention that purchase is for human consumption purposes, will not be supplied," the website says.

The topic is so contentious Mrs Bolt does not even discuss whether she drinks raw milk. She does however admit that she thinks the matter of whether raw milk can be sold for consumption should be reviewed.

Mrs Bolt said she respected the law that was in place but said it was quite strict. "You sell a can of cat food and tell people it is pet food, if they are going to eat it, that's their choice, they are choosing to take that risk," she said.

Mrs Bolt said the company sourced the milk from farms in the south-west and there was a big demand for it. "We sell whatever we can get," Mrs Bolt said.

Some believe raw milk is a healthier option to drinking pastuerised milk because of its nutritional content.

A group called the Australia Alliance for Raw Milk is made up of farmers and consumers who believe they should have the freedom to choose what food or drink they consume, including raw milk. "We believe in our right to farm our own private land and trade/share the produce with others without undue government or corporate interference," their Facebook page says.

Their page directs people looking for raw milk in Western Australia to Perth Organics.

Associate professor in health sciences Sebely Pal said she recommended that if a person had access to pasteurised milk, they should drink pasteurised milk rather than raw milk.

"If it's not pasteurised it can have bacteria and viruses which children are especially susceptible to," she said. "It's best not to take chances.

"In the old days there were higher incidences of tuberculosis and other diseases that we think could've been from drinking unpasteurised milk."

Associate professor Pal admitted that people in countries such as India drank unpasteurised milk but there was little research done into the effects of it.

She said it was difficult to assess the rate of disease without comparing people from the same population drinking pasteurised and unpasteurised milk, which would be illegal in Australia.

AUSTRALIA'S fast-food chains are trying to wriggle out of changes to national wage laws that will soon force them to pay employees penalty rates on weekends.

The move comes as an independent senator attempts to introduce laws that would remove double-time weekend wages, which, he says, are crippling small businesses.

Fast-food outlets, restaurants, retailers and unions have this week filed submissions to a major review of the nation's awards system by Fair Work Australia.

Among the more significant submissions is a push by Hungry Jack's, McDonald's, Red Rooster, Pizza Hut, KFC and other big chains - which together represent 47 per cent of the industry - to remove the requirement to pay compulsory weekend penalty rates.
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The fast-food companies' submission, made on their behalf by the Australian Industry Group, asks the workplace umpire to do away with weekend penalties altogether. Big fast-food outlets such as McDonald's have enterprise agreements, covering thousands of staff, which until now have not awarded penalty rates to most employees.

McDonald's current agreement, which expires in 2013, covers 80,000 employees - about a quarter of them young people. If nothing is changed, from next year it would be forced to pay these workers 25 per cent extra on Saturdays and 50 per cent more on Sundays.

McDonald's human resources director Joanne Taylor has told Fair Work Australia the chain could not enter into a new agreement with staff under the new award, because of the ''substantially higher costs''. Pizza Hut franchisees have also said they could not afford the penalties.

Under the plan put forward by fast-food retailers, workers at all fast-food outlets would get 10 per cent extra if they worked after 10 on any night of the week and 15 per cent extra after midnight.

All obligations to pay extra on weekends from next year would be removed. Penalties in the fast-food industry for most major employers were imposed for the first time in 2010, when the current award came into place.

The national secretary of the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association, Joe de Bruyn, said the fast-food chains were trying to wriggle out of new conditions they had known were coming since 2008.

The push is part of a wider move by employers to remove penalty rates, particularly across the retail and hospitality sectors. ACTU president Ged Kearney said yesterday that unions would fight hard on the issue.

Meanwhile, independent senator Nick Xenophon is attempting to change workplace laws over double-time weekend wages, which, he says, are costing young people their jobs.

Senator Xenophon's proposed amendment would see penalty rates still payable, but only where an employee worked more than 38 hours in seven days, or more than 10 hours in a day. The changes would only apply to small businesses employing fewer than 20 full-time staff.

Just across the Richmond River from Ballina’s Big Prawn, Bernard and Rikki Grinberg run a caravan park on eight pretty hectares behind South Ballina beach.

They have ploughed their retirement savings into restoring an old camping ground into a low-key, affordable, family-friendly eco-resort.

But now, like property owners all over NSW, their livelihood is under threat, as green-dominated councils use a new statewide planning template effectively to “sterilise” land of human influence.

The Grinberg’s Ballina Beach Village has been rezoned from a recreational zone to the environmentally sensitive category of E2, which is the next stage down from a national park, and forbids tourist activity. While, technically, they are allowed to keep operating their eco-resort under an “existing uses” clause, the reality is the opposite.

Now, every time they want to change anything, whether it is to use crockery at their kiosk, hire a singer to play in their piano bar, renovate the interior of an old shed to turn it into a yoga studio, even trim a branch off a termite-infested tree that might fall on a tent, they have to submit a development application and prove to Ballina Shire Council they are not “intensifying” the use of their land.

The effect is that their thriving business is becoming unviable.

From leafy Sydney suburbs such as Terrey Hills and Frenchs Forest in Warringah to Eurobodalla on the south coast, to Ballina and Byron Bay and inland to Lismore and Kyogle, wherever there is bush and greenies, councils are deciding to impose excessively restrictive environmental zones on private property.

Landowners rezoned to E2 or E3 have found their property values slashed overnight, leaving them unable to improve their land or even farm it effectively. In Ballina and Byron shires as much as one third of agricultural land has been rezoned.

What an E2 zoning does is stop, for example, a macadamia farmer leaving a paddock fallow for a year, a standard farming practice to rest the soil. If he wants to replant macadamias on that paddock, or even switch to mangoes, he has to apply for a DA.

Rezoning land to a more restrictive regime is known as dezoning, but Rikki, 55, and Bernard, 65, describe it as “land theft”.

E2 and E3 zonings are “the exocet missile of green bureaucracy”, they say. Planning laws have “given very powerful weapons to very misguided people”.

A nearby farmer, who asks not to be named, has valuations which show the E2 dezoning has halved the value of his land.

On January 5, 2006, his farm was worth $5.6 million. On February 1, this year, it was worth just $2.6 million.

In their report, valuers Herron Todd White explained: “Ballina Shire Council draft LEP (Local Environment Plan) designates substantial parts of the [farm] as E2 Environmental Conservation zoning. This significantly limits the use (to) which this land can be put.” No kidding.

So far, the Grinbergs have had to spend $150,000 on lawyers and town planners just to defend their right to conduct business as usual.

They blame the previous state Labor government for imposing a new planning template across the state’s 150 councils. But after 16 months in office the O’Farrell government has done nothing to fix the problem.

Frank Sartor, the former Labor planning minister who signed off on the changes, defends the template, known as a “standard instrument”. It was intended to standardise the confusing mishmash of different definitions across NSW into 30 to 40 standard zonings.

“The template provides a great deal of flexibility. It is absolute nonsense to blame the template for planning problems that are of local councils’ own making,” he says.

But who will protect landowners from rogue councils? Not Premier Barry O’Farrell.

The election of a new Coalition government on a planning platform of empowering local councils has created a perfect storm. The template provides the opportunity for councils arbitrarily to rezone land, and the laissez faire attitude of the O’Farrell government gives them the freedom to do it.

And in case deep greens are applauding at this point, freedom cuts both ways, depending on the ideology of the council involved - whether that is the green ethos of locking land away from humans, or the white shoe brigade’s ideal of the concrete jungle.

NSW Planning Minister Brad Hazzard is overhauling planning laws but says he is stuck with the template inherited from Labor.

“Where I have had major concerns I have stepped in to excise areas (from E2 and E3 zonings and require councils to) go back to the community and look at the science, look at the evidence,” to determine if land should be locked up, he said.

“It is truly a challenge for state government because we came into power (promising) to devolve more power to local communities ...

“The challenge is to make sure councils properly consult local communities.”

But he questions “whether it is appropriate for state government to take a heavy-handed interventionist approach”.

Why not? Real people are being smashed.

The Grinbergs say the government is just “rejigging” rather than finding a permanent solution. “You’re just back having the fight with council,” says Bernard. “The zoning will still be manipulated by councils imposing expensive DA processes and red tape to drive owners off their land.”

They say “scientific evidence” just means council ecologists will pay $150,000 to like-minded environmental consultants to produce reports proving the area is environmentally sensitive.

The Grinbergs have put elbow grease and their retirement savings into the land they fell in love with. They’ve turned a rundown slum into a tranquil ecohaven, accessible to families of moderate means.

This is why the NSW economy is still on its knees. The O’Farrell government is squandering a huge mandate with its timid and ineffectual approach. It is more determined to be loved by everyone than to do the tough job it was elected to do: fix 11 years of Labor mismanagement.

We have an insane planning regime which is cutting the value of people’s property in half. Just fix it.

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Background

Postings from Brisbane, Australia by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.) -- former member of the Australia-Soviet Friendship Society, former anarcho-capitalist and former member of the British Conservative party.

Most academics are lockstep Leftists so readers do sometimes doubt that I have the qualifications mentioned above. Photocopies of my academic and military certificates are however all viewable here

For overseas readers: The "ALP" is the Australian Labor Party -- Australia's major Leftist party. The "Liberal" party is Australia's major conservative political party.

In most Australian States there are two conservative political parties, the city-based Liberal party and the rural-based National party. But in Queensland those two parties are amalgamated as the LNP.

Again for overseas readers: Like the USA, Germany and India, Australia has State governments as well as the Federal government. So it may be useful to know the usual abbreviations for the Australian States: QLD (Queensland), NSW (New South Wales), WA (Western Australia), VIC (Victoria), TAS (Tasmania), SA (South Australia).

For American readers: A "pensioner" is a retired person living on Social Security

"Digger" is an honorific term for an Australian soldier

Another lesson in Australian: When an Australian calls someone a "big-noter", he is saying that the person is a chronic and rather pathetic seeker of admiration -- as in someone who often pulls out "big notes" (e.g. $100.00 bills) to pay for things, thus endeavouring to create the impression that he is rich. The term describes the mentality rather than the actual behavior with money and it aptly describes many Leftists. When they purport to show "compassion" by advocating things that cost themselves nothing (e.g. advocating more taxes on "the rich" to help "the poor"), an Australian might say that the Leftist is "big-noting himself". There is an example of the usage here. The term conveys contempt. There is a wise description of Australians generally here

Another bit of Australian: Any bad writing or messy anything was once often described as being "like a pakapoo ticket". In origin this phrase refers to a ticket written with Chinese characters - and thus inscrutably confusing to Western eyes. These tickets were part of a Chinese gambling game called "pakapoo".

Two of my ancestors were convicts so my family has been in Australia for a long time. As well as that, all four of my grandparents were born in the State where I was born and still live: Queensland. And I am even a member of the world's second-most condemned minority: WASPs (the most condemned is of course the Jews -- which may be why I tend to like Jews). So I think I am as Australian as you can get. I certainly feel that way. I like all things that are iconically Australian: meat pies, Vegemite, Henry Lawson etc. I particularly pride myself on my familiarity with the great Australian slanguage. I draw the line at Iced Vo-Vos and betting on the neddies, however. So if I cannot comment insightfully on Australian affairs, who could?

My son Joe

On all my blogs, I express my view of what is important primarily by the readings that I select for posting. I do however on occasions add personal comments in italicized form at the beginning of an article.

I am rather pleased to report that I am a lifelong conservative. Out of intellectual curiosity, I did in my youth join organizations from right across the political spectrum so I am certainly not closed-minded and am very familiar with the full spectrum of political thinking. Nonetheless, I did not have to undergo the lurch from Left to Right that so many people undergo. At age 13 I used my pocket-money to subscribe to the "Reader's Digest" -- the main conservative organ available in small town Australia of the 1950s. I have learnt much since but am pleased and amused to note that history has since confirmed most of what I thought at that early age.

I imagine that the the RD is still sending mailouts to my 1950s address!

I am an army man. Although my service in the Australian army was chiefly noted for its un-notability, I DID join voluntarily in the Vietnam era, I DID reach the rank of Sergeant, and I DID volunteer for a posting in Vietnam. So I think I may be forgiven for saying something that most army men think but which most don't say because they think it is too obvious: The profession of arms is the noblest profession of all because it is the only profession where you offer to lay down your life in performing your duties. Our men fought so that people could say and think what they like but I myself always treat military men with great respect -- respect which in my view is simply their due.

The kneejerk response of the Green/Left to people who challenge them is to say that the challenger is in the pay of "Big Oil", "Big Business", "Big Pharma", "Exxon-Mobil", "The Pioneer Fund" or some other entity that they see, in their childish way, as a boogeyman. So I think it might be useful for me to point out that I have NEVER received one cent from anybody by way of support for what I write. As a retired person, I live entirely on my own investments. I do not work for anybody and I am not beholden to anybody. And I have NO investments in oil companies or mining companies

Although I have been an atheist for all my adult life, I have no hesitation in saying that the single book which has influenced me most is the New Testament. And my Scripture blog will show that I know whereof I speak.

The Rt. Rev. Phil Case (Moderator of the Presbyterian church in Queensland) is a Pharisee, a hypocrite, an abomination and a "whited sepulchre".

English-born Australian novellist, Patrick White was a great favourite in literary circles. He even won a Nobel prize. But I and many others I have spoken to find his novels very turgid and boring. Despite my interest in history, I could only get through about a third of his historical novel Voss before I gave up. So why has he been so popular in literary circles? Easy. He was a miserable old Leftist coot, and, incidentally, a homosexual. And literary people are mostly Leftists with similar levels of anger and alienation from mainstream society. They enjoy his jaundiced outlook, his dissatisfaction, rage and anger.

Would you believe that there once was a politician whose nickname was "Honest"? "Honest" Frank Nicklin M.M. was a war hero, a banana farmer and later the conservative Premier of my home State of Queensland in the '60s. He was even popular with the bureaucracy and gave the State a remarkably tranquil 10 years during his time in office. Sad that there are so few like him.

Revered Labour Party leader Gough Whitlam was a very erudite man so he cannot have been unaware of the similarities of his famous phrase “the Party, the platform, the people” with an earlier slogan: "Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuehrer". It's basically the same slogan in reverse order.

Australia's original inhabitants were a race of pygmies, some of whom survived into modern times in the mountainous regions of the Atherton tableland in far North Queensland. See also here. Below is a picture of one of them taken in 2007, when she was 105 years old and 3'7" tall

Julia Gillard, a failed feminist flop. She was given the job of Prime Minister of Australia but her feminist preaching was so unpopular that she was booted out of the job by her own Leftist party. Her signature "achievements" were the carbon tax and the mining tax, both of which were repealed by the next government.

The "White Australia Policy: "The Immigration Restriction Act was not about white supremacy, racism, or the belief that whites were higher up the evolutionary tree than the coloured races. Rather, it was designed to STOP the racist exploitation of non-whites (all of whom would have been illiterate peasants practicing religions and cultures anathema to progressive democracy) being conscripted into a life of semi-slavery in a coolie-worked plantation economy for the benefit of the absolute monarchs, hereditary aristocracy and the super-wealthy companies and share-holders of the northern hemisphere.

A great little kid

In November 2007, a four-year-old boy was found playing in a croc-infested Territory creek after sneaking off pig hunting alone with four dogs and a puppy. The toddler was found five-and-a-half hours after he set off from his parents' house playing in a creek with the puppy. Amazingly, Daniel Woditj also swam two creeks known to be inhabited by crocs during his adventurous romp. Mr Knight said that after walking for several kilometres, Daniel came to a creek and swam across it. Four of his dogs "bailed up" at the creek but the youngster continued on undaunted with his puppy to a second creek. Mr Knight said Daniel swam the second croc-infested creek and walked on for several more kilometres. "Captain is a hard bushman and Daniel is following in his footsteps. They breed them tough out bush."

A great Australian: His eminence George Pell. Pictured in devout company before his elevation to Rome

There are also two blogspot blogs which record what I think are my main recent articles here and here. Similar content can be more conveniently accessed via my subject-indexed list of short articles here or here (I rarely write long articles these days)

NOTE: The archives provided by blogspot below are rather inconvenient. They break each month up into small bits. If you want to scan whole months at a time, the backup archives will suit better. See here or here